Banana Cream Cheese Muffins with Crumb Topping

January 24, 2011

One of my favorite things happened in the kitchen this morning. I woke up to find ripened bananas hanging from my banana hook. To me, it was a sight for sore eyes and I couldn’t wait to create a baked banana treat. My husband has been craving a chocolate treat for many days now so when I told him that I was going to bake with the bananas he was a little disappointed.

Since I’m heading out of town for a few days this week, I knew I had to use up the bananas prior to my departure. Because of this, I had to think of a way to spruce up my traditional muffins in order to keep the husband happy…and to give him treats to snack on throughout the week.

I perused my cupboard and refrigerator to see what I could come up with using mashed bananas and discovered that I had just enough cream cheese for a delicious stuffing. By adding just a tablespoonful of the cream cheese filling into each muffin cup, it resulted in a smooth and creamy dollop of a surprise in each and every bite of the muffins.

Banana Cream Cheese Muffins with Crumb Topping

Ingredients:

For the muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 bananas, mashed

3/4 cup white sugar

1 egg

1/3 cup butter, melted

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

For the cream cheese filling

4 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg

For the crumb topping

1/3 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.

i have made muffins very similar to this (pumkin instead of banana) and i think it works a better to get all the fixins together before assembly for those of yu who are bookmarking like me! i will def. be making this with a lil cinnamon in the muffin batter also :)

Hi! I just made these muffins and I was curious if I made the filling correctly. I imagined it would be a dollop of cream cheese but when I add the egg obviously it becomes very runny. Is this right? When I put it on top of the mixture it just runs over the mixture. Taste wise, its great. I'm curious if you think the egg in the cream cheese is necessary or could do without. I'm not an expert by any means.Thanks for the great site. I also made the Granola today and loved it!-Shannon

I have been looking at other recipes for cream cheese filling and I believe if you add more than 4oz of cream cheese it will resolve the runny issue. I am going to give it try today, have several brown bananas and I refuse to throw them out. :)

Once I mixed up the cream cheese filling and saw that it was pretty runny.. Filled up the cups of an ice cube tray with the mix and freeze em' Maybe 20 mins? They didn't come out as perfect cubes.. but I was able to scoop em' out with a fork and they worked perfect.